I’m not a clinician–I would never be able to master the non-judgmental part–but I’ve always been interested in psychological disorders. Given my other interests in functionalism and evolutionary psychology, I found a recent article by Andrews and Thomson about depression as an adaptation to be quite fascinating. Their basic idea was that psychological disorders should be rare (schizophrenia affects about 1% of the world’s population, while vastly reducing reproductive fitness), but depression is not rare at all. Nor does depression exclusively target those who are past reproductive age or who live in a particular culture.
An argument for depression as an adaptation suggests that something positive must be arising from the mood state, and Andrews and Thomson suggest several possibilities. The rumination that typically accompanies depression might encourage the analytical thinking needed to solve complex social problems. Depression also encourages social isolation, which Andrews and Thomson suggest helps the person avoid interruptions that interfere with problem solving.
While I agree with Andrews and Thomson on some points, I think one of the remaining issues is that depression is very complex, and can arise from many different sources. Andrews and Thomson suggest one functionalist view when they state that “depression is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve got complex social problems that the mind is intent on solving.” Depression can also be nature’s way of telling you that you majorly screwed up. Stop what you’re doing, figure out what went wrong, and learn to do things a different way. I’m always a little surprised at people who engage in self-destructive behaviors on a regular basis and then wonder why they’re not happy all the time.
In other cases, though, depression can result from an extreme loss, which all the mind activity in the world isn’t going to fix. In still other cases, depression seems to occur when no problems at all are on the horizon–this seems to me to be the most illogical and disordered of mood states. Your mood is supposed to match your circumstances.
Regardless of its source, depression is a very unpleasant state that people wish to escape as quickly as possible. I’m a fan of William James’ advice: To feel better, people are advised “to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act as if cheerfulness were already there.” Better yet, do something that is guaranteed to put a smile on your face and avoid the things/people that usually make you feel grumpy. I know that if I’m feeling bugged by something, that a quick bout of gardening will fix things, while housework will make it worse. Needless to say, my garden looks better than my house 🙂
Nobody Can Be Depressed in a California Garden
2 Comments
aseastrunk · November 7, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I found this to be a very interesting point of view on depression. It makes sense that depression could serve as a period for problem solving. But, I wonder why some people have long bouts of depression and others don’t. We all get depressed sometimes, but people with clinical depression experience it for longer periods of time. The problem-solving idea doesn’t really work for cases of clinical depression that are brought on by nothing. Depression can definitely be an indicator that something is wrong, but when it outlasts the actual wrong situation, it becomes detrimental to a person’s life. I don’t know if depression can be both adaptive and maladaptive at the same time. Maybe someday we will find out!
mmoeinaz · November 21, 2009 at 11:46 pm
This was such an interesting perspective on depression. I do agree that depression is a byproduct when something goes wrong or when there is a big loss. However, I feel that many times, depression results for no reason. It is difficult to find a justification when someone wakes up in the morning, and simply cannot feel happy or find any reason to explain why they wake up feeling blue. Still, on the other hand, depression could totally be seen as a defense mechanism. Depression does often turn us into “hermits” where we will retreat, and spend much time with ourselves to do some thinking. I am considering a hurtful relationship. If there is an imbalance in the relationship where you feel down, you are likely to wish to retreat and be away from that person. This time apart will allow you to think more clearly and hopefully make some adjustments to the relationship. Also, if there is a huge loss, it is often necessary to have the time alone to cope with the greiving stages so they can move on with their lives. So definitely, depression does have some survival benefits.
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